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Wednesday, 9 September 2009

Marshville Heritage Festival

On Saturday we went to the Marshville Heritage Festival, which is held each labour day weekend in - wait for it - Wainfleet. At the Marshville Heritage Village; admittedly not too far from Marshville.

It didn't particularly have anything to do with food, apart from there being lots, much of it better than your average fair food. However, we are up to our eyebrows in canning tomato sauce at the moment so there's nothing else new to post about.

Many of the participants get into the spirit of the thing by wearing vaguely old-timey costumes.

Normally, the place is a museum of old buildings. It's still a museum of old buildings during the festival of course, but the place is packed. It would probably be better to visit the museum some other time, because it's well worth seeing properly, and concentrate on the craft and food vendors that flood the place for the heritage festival.

Soup from an open kettle - an inexpensive, healthy and delicious festival tradition.

The arena is full of vendors. There's maple syrup and fudge back there, as well as preserves and all kinds of crafts.

Outdoors, too. A very nice selection of crafts overall; definitely better than average.

What makes the Marshville Heritage Festival a stand-out though, is their large exhibitions of antique farm machinery, much of it supplied and run by members of the Niagara Antique Power Association. This 1907 bean-thresher belongs to the museum, though.

The bean-thresher in action.

And this guy is making bales of hay the old fashioned way - hay goes into the hopper by muscle-power.

The other fabulous thing about the Marshville Festival is the huge display of really choice old cars. There are obviously a lot of antique car fanciers in the Niagara region, and they turn out in droves for this festival. Saturday was for cars up to 1950 only (1950 to 1973 on Sunday) so they really were good old cars. This one from the 1920's. I didn't take notes. It might be a Ford Model A but don't quote me on that.

Just one small section.

Special Deluxe! *Sigh* They don't make 'em like that anymore. Just as well, in a lot of ways, but still...

Oooh! Shiny! And dates back to 1913! A cadillac, no less; a luxurious car that looked more modern than the Ford for the masses from at least 10 years later.

Glamourous old 1930's Hudsons.

A worn medallion and a great combination of textures.

There's my dad! Next to a 1929 Ford of the same model his father drove until he was 5, and which he remembers quite well. Pop-pop's was black, though.

We stayed overnight in Port Colborne and had breakfast before we left, in a restaurant by the canal. As we were coming out, a ship went through. This photo really doesn't give any sense of just how huge these things are. If you can get out in the country a bit to see them, it's also quite surreal to see them sailing calmly through the farmland.